You're Here Now
by ink and blue jays
Summary: Fred and George might waggle their eyebrows and snigger every time they saw him and Hermione together, but Ron honestly couldn't sense anything special between them. At least, nothing as special as this. [HarryRon. A challenge.]


**Disclaimer:** _I do not own any of the Harry Potter series or any of its characters or plot._

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**AN:** _*embarrassed cough* Um, there's actually a proper but slightly messed up explanatio__n behind this. Clemencor, who I know in real life, likes the number fourteen. When I realized I apparently had thirteen stories, I asked him what would be a good fourteenth story. And, because he loves to pretend to be an idiot, he said, "Ooo, Harry and Ron! Slash!" Now, I'm pretty sure he was joking about that, but hey, that was his first answer. Besides, I didn't want to back down from a challenge._

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**Dedication:**** Clemencor **(who else?), you brilliant, screwed up, genius, crazy maniac, this is all your fault.

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**You're Here Now****  
**Fred and George might waggle their eyebrows and snigger every time they saw him and Hermione together, but Ron honestly couldn't sense anything special between them. At least, nothing as special as this.

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The Tournament was over. After all the practice, the far too many hours spent researching in the library, the bloody _Yule Ball_, the Triwizard Tournament was finally, finally over.

And Cedric Diggory was dead.

Ron grimaced. None of it seemed natural, none of it seemed _real_. It couldn't have possibly been Diggory's body he'd seen just three nights ago, with Harry clinging hopelessly to it, half-sobbing, more battered and beaten than the Stone or the Chamber or both. For how could Diggory be dead, when Ron had seen him practicing for nights and days, when Ron had seen him go against a _dragon_ and _win_?

_It was You-Know-Who this time_, his mind whispered, and Ron shivered, though it wasn't really all that cold.

He hoped Harry would be okay. Of course, technically he was, physically—Pomfrey had released him this morning after about three check-ups—but he knew Harry had gone through a lot if nothing else, gone through things that he'd been lucky to come out of alive. Ron's heart beat hard against his ribs. Harry was his best mate—and maybe more, murmured a voice in the back of his head; he firmly told it to shut up (Merlin, was he really thinking about that _now?_)—however badly things went, Ron would _never_ want him gone.

Was it wrong to be glad, _so _glad, that Harry was alive, even if Cedric Diggory was not?

He looked out at the lake, silently searching. His eyes finally fell upon Harry's figure, hunched by a tree. His back was to Ron, so he hadn't seen him yet.

"Hey."

Harry looked up and smiled faintly. "Hey."

Ron rubbed his arms. "I… uh… how're you doing?"

It was a stupid question. Ron didn't know what exactly had transpired that night, but he knew something had changed. He'd been withdrawn, quieter than usual, and sometimes he'd just stare off into space, like he was seeing things Ron couldn't, until Ron shook him out of his torturous stupor. Even those beautiful emerald green eyes didn't seem as bright as they had been, nothing more than dull stones behind round glasses.

And… sometimes he dreamed—nightmared—things. Ron had slept in the hospital wing beside him last night, feigning injury, and he'd heard him muttering in his sleep; of course he did, he'd been the one to wake him up each time… He bit his lip, willing himself not to think about it. Hermione was enough of a worrier for the three of them, after all.

Now, Harry shrugged and looked away. "I'm fine."

_Are you really?_ Ron wanted to ask, and he knew Harry could hear the unspoken question even as he kept silent. Harry stared off into the distance again.

Ron plopped down by the grass beside him without another word. If Harry didn't want to talk about it, then he supposed he could do with not prying.

"I never really said sorry for—well, y'know, leaving. You. When you were picked."

Harry's gaze snapped back to bore into him, and Ron cursed his big mouth.

"You don't have to."

Ron shrugged, feeling very awkward. "I—I want to," he said, very quickly. "I just… I shouldn't've left. I mean, you'd needed me, and I just… just let the jealousy get to my head, 'cause…" And Ron decided to swallow back the words, then. An explanation wasn't what Harry needed right now. "I'm sorry."

"Ron." Harry shook his head, smiling softly, and slipped an arm around the other's shoulders, pressing their bodies together. "Look, I get it, okay? It was over a long time ago. I forgave you a long time ago. You don't have to say anything to me."

Another shrug. "Yeah, I know, but—I had to say it—for myself."

Harry laughed softly, but without malice, and Ron liked to think that in that moment, that emerald green gaze sparkled again, bright and burning, even for just the shortest second. "Ah, Ron," Harry said again, shifting to look at him. Ron stared back, trying to memorize his features—the way that jet-black hair moved slowly back and forth with the wind, the way his smooth face lit up in the sweetest smile, the way his eyes, brilliant green, made it impossible to look away—

Harry clasped Ron's hand in his, and lightning seemed to race up and down between them. Ron felt the giddy urge to grin. Fred and George might waggle their eyebrows and snigger every time they saw him and Hermione together, but Ron honestly couldn't sense anything special between them: At least, nothing as special as this.

"Whatever happens and whatever _did_ happen," Harry said, "You're here _now_. Okay? So thank you for that."

And then, before Ron could say anything else, he felt Harry's lips close lightly over his, very quickly, soft and swift and flesh on flesh, before pulling away again.

"Oh," said Ron stupidly.

Harry laughed brightly, and the laugh was loud and rueful, but it was the first laugh Ron had heard from him in days, and it made his heart jump. "We shouldn't be—" Harry shook his head, suddenly just as awkward as Ron. "If the others see, y'know…"

Nevertheless, Harry did not remove his arm from where it stayed around Ron's shoulders, and the two (both wordlessly deciding, at the same time, that the school could bugger off and see whatever they bloody saw) sat like that on the quiet grass, huddled together, all the way till sundown.

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**AN:** _Still feeling rather awkward after writing this. I've read a bit of Harry/Ron, but, wow, writing one is way harder. I don't even ship it... much..._


End file.
